Female Reporter urgue Wahab Riaz Badly Words

Pace bowler Wahab Riaz claims that neither he nor his team-mates are the least bit concerned about what the cricket-loving public say about Pakistan and their murky past.

On Thursday, Wahab’s fellow paceman Mohammad Amir returns to Lord’s where six years ago, during his country’s last tour of England, he bowled no-balls in exchange for money at the behest of his then captain Salman Butt. Amir served time and a five-year ban from the game but is now back – to the distaste of many.

“You cannot stop what people say and what people think,” Riaz said at Lord’s in a spiky and bullish press conference on Tuesday ahead of the first Investec Test. “It doesn’t matter what people think and we are not here to answer what people think. We are here to play good, competitive cricket against an England side who are very good in their home conditions.

“Our focus and concentration is to win this Test and play as good as we can for our country and win this game. That is all we are thinking. We know things will come and go but you hear it in one ear and you leave it with the other and you just concentrate on your cricket.”